The use of satellite data in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) is instrumental in terms of providing accurate and timely weather forecasts. More than 90% of all observational data assimilated in global NWP comes from satellites. As an example, MetOp First Generation data alone is the largest contributor to reducing global short-term forecast errors, providing 25% error reduction in terms of forecast prediction considering the total observation impact of all assimilated observations (including satellite and surface based observations). MetOp Second Generation (MetOp-SG), currently under development, will bring further skill improvement to NWP.ESA recently concluded a study (Use of Spectral Information at Microwave Region for Numerical Weather Prediction) showing that a so-called high spectral resolution microwave sounder instrument can provide further significant benefits to the satellite sounding capability. By sampling the brightness temperature at much higher spectral density than currently (every few tenths to a few hundredths of MHz over large bandwidths in both the 60GHz oxygen band and in the 183 GHz water vapour band), reduction in retrieval uncertainty for temperature, compared to current and planned instruments, can be up to 10% and is more than twice what would be obtained with MetOp-SG microwave sounder. For humidity, improvements can reach 30%, a significant benefit as compared to current and planned instruments.This new proposed activity aims to build a flexible airborne demonstrator instrument to validate the improvements of this new microwave sounding approach, to support the continued improvement of instruments and observation capabilities in weather forecast and global NWP. The activity encompasses the instrument development, airworthiness certification on an airborne carrier and a functional test flight. The contract will be phased, with a first phase devoted to the detailed analysis of user requirements and the design of the instrument and the second phase dealing with manufacturing and test.

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